Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

Health Officials Investigate West Nile/Organ Transplants Link

Aired September 01, 2002 - 18:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Federal health investigators want to know whether there is a link between transplanted human organs and the West Nile virus. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has the latest now on what the CDC is trying to learn about this -- Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm just back from the CDC. I was there this afternoon listening to officials talk about this. And let me outline the situation that we have here in Georgia and in Florida.

In early August, a Georgia woman got into a car, and went to the hospital. She died shortly thereafter, and her family donated her heart, kidneys and lungs to four different recipients. All four of those recipients have since had an illness that looks like it could be West Nile virus. It's been confirmed in one. Two others have encephalitis, which is of course the most dangerous problem that is associated with West Nile virus. And the fourth has a more mild disease that also could be West Nile virus.

Now, public health officials are saying they're still trying to figure out exactly what the link is here. This woman's body parts have not gone to anybody else. But the big question mark, the big missing link, is that this woman who donated the organs, before she died she received multiple blood transfusions. As a matter of fact, she received blood or blood products from 37 different people. So she may have gotten infected that way. She may have gotten infected from a mosquito, but she may have gotten an infection from the blood that she received, and that blood may have gone to other people before they figured this all out.

So they need to trace that blood back, see where it went, and see if it caused or may have caused any other forms of illness.

Now, all of this sounds pretty scary. West Nile virus may be in the blood system, may be in organs that are going to be donated. But CDC officials have said that the risk of getting West Nile virus from donated blood or from body parts is minimal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JAMES HUGHES, DIR., CDC, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If I needed an organ transplant, the last thing that I would be worried about would be the risk of West Nile virus infection.

QUESTION: And if you needed a blood transfusion?

HUGHES: And similarly, if I needed a blood transfusion, I wouldn't give West Nile virus a second thought.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: And again, the CDC continues to do tests, continues to do medical detective work to see if the blood transfusion that the woman who donated the organs, to see if that blood or blood products went to anybody else besides this woman who donated the organs that may have gotten people sick.

SAVIDGE: Elizabeth, the medical officials must have in theory known that this was possible. Why not, say, test the organs, test the blood as a common routine?

COHEN: Right. Sort of when you go in to give blood, why don't they test you for it just like they test for HIV or for certain forms of hepatitis.

Well, the reason is that West Nile virus is what's called an emerging virus. It's only been around for three years, and CDC officials said, look, we don't have a good test, we just haven't come up with one yet to screen blood or to screen organs. We have it for HIV, we have it for hepatitis, but that's because those diseases have been around for a lot longer. They said we want to -- now that this has happened they want to speed it up, but they just don't have a way of doing that.

What they can do is if you come in with a fever, they're not going to take your blood, because that may mean that you have West Nile virus. But you could also be asymptomatic, because most people are asymptomatic when they've got the virus and they would never know not to take your blood.

SAVIDGE: All right. It's one more concern to think about.

COHEN: One more concern. Yeah.

SAVIDGE: Thank you, Elizabeth Cohen, very much.

COHEN: Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com